We beg pardon of Mr.
Alexander Macnab, of Lily burn, for the title of this article, which
couples calico printers and fighting dogs together. We wished to give
some account of each, and found that we were anticipated by the author
of “The Parish of Campsie,” whose information on both subjects is so
full that we cannot do better than give it verbatim—our title, we hope,
will therefore pass :—

“The late Mr. James
Macnab began life as manager to his uncle, Mr. D. Ferguson, at Milncroft,
near Glasgow. In a few years, he joined his brother John, the late Mr.
Thomas Boyd, along with a Mr. Smellie, and they commenced business as
Calico-printers, at Bellfield, Kirkintilloch, under the firm of Boyd,
Smellie & Macnabs. The firm took a lease of the works for nineteen
years, from the late Mr. Thomson. Mr. Boyd and the Messrs. Macnab soon
found reason to complain of their partner Mr. Smellie. Calico-printing
was quite uncongenial to his sporting tastes and proclivities.

“At every public ball, at
every wedding to which he could obtain an invitation, at dances of all
kinds he was sure to be present. He was also musical and an excellent
player on the violin, and was, in consequence, in great request at
social and festive gatherings. He was a fine-looking man, and when
attired in the full dress of the period, with white hat and top boots,
he was a dandy of the first water.

“He had a passion for
dogs, having sometimes as many as forty in his possession at one time.
Three of these dogs, of the famous Kirkintilloch 1 Blue Pauls’ were
matchless fighters, and were never beaten. These were ‘ Courage, *4
Crib,* and ‘Tiflae.' The story of the 'Blue Pauls ’ descended through
the male line from a Campsie dog, may be told here, although unconnected
with calico-printing at Lilybum.

“A regiment changing
quarters, marched through Kirkintilloch shortly after 1820, when there
was left behind, strayed, a fine bitch, believed to be the property of
one of the officers. This dog was one of a very peculiar kind, which
beat all the fanciers to determine the breed. The most plausible
conjecture was, that it was a cross between an English bull and some
other terrier, probably Bedlington. It was large in sire, and a more
game animal never walked. It would face anything. It became the property
of what would be called now, a syndicate of the "fancy,* of which a man
named Shaw, who kept the ‘Beehive' Tavern in Townhead was a leading man.
Dr. Robertson, of Campsie, had a famous white bull dog, *a beauty,’ and
said to be perfect in all the points. From a cross between this Campsie
dog, and the strayed regimental waif, sprang the race that for a few
years were famous as the Kirkintilloch "Blue Pauls.*

“There used, in these
days, to be great dog fights at Bishopbriggs, for large sums of money,
sometimes even for ^40 or ^50 a-side. This breed was never beat; and so
famous did it become, that orders came from every part of the country,
even from abroad, to procure dogs of this strain, for which large sums
were offered. The strain was soon spoiled by chance indiscriminate
crossing, and the qualities that had made the parents valuable, were
lost in their *messan* descendants.

“How could Mr. Smellie be
expected to plod at Bellfield, when excited with the chances of
"Courage,* or *Crib?* After the co-partnery had existed for two years,
he retired from the Bellfield firm.

“During the currency of
their nineteen years’ lease, great success attended Boyd & Macnab’s,
and, according to popular report, a great amount of money was made by
the Bellfield firm. Their manufactures were fortunate in obtaining a
favourable name; "Bellfield prints* being not only well-known in
Scotland, but also in Manchester and London. When Lilybum came into the
market, the lease of Bellfield had not expired, and the firm were not at
liberty to leave until it had run out. Mr. Alexander Macnab, therefore,
secured it in the meantime, and as soon as they were at liberty to do
so, the Messrs. Macnab transferred their business from Bellfield to
Lilybum. Mr. Boyd went to Barrhead, whither a number of the
Kirkintilloch employees followed him.

Kirkintilloch was well
known for cock-fighting and badger-baiting, as well as dog-fighting; and
the late James Merry, Esq., of sporting celebrity, when a young man,
came frequently to see the game-cocks, which were said to be second to
none. As the present generation may have some idea of a dog-fight, or a
cock-fight, but will wonder what badger-baiting means, we shall
endeavour to explain it, as we saw it done in Lanarkshire forty-six
years ago, although we never saw an organised match for dog or cock
combats.

The sport of
“badger-baiting,” although so called, was not exercised in order to bait
or worry the badger, but to try the courage of dogs.

A long wooden box was
provided, about nine feet in length, and a foot square, open at the one
end, and placed in the corner of a room. The badger was brought in,
suspended by the tail, and although a peaceable -looking animal, his
long sharp teeth and claws showed he was a dangerous customer, but at
present he is put in at the open end of the box, and quietly walks to
the far end, and turns round to await his foes. A dog is then led in,
and his behaviour will be according to his breed and courage. If he only
stands and barks, there is no hope of him, and he is at once discarded
and another procured. When pure bred and “game” he wastes no time, but
runs in on his foe, who, on his part, is not slow to defend himself, and
sometimes gives his adversaries dreadful bites, even to the loss of a
fore-paw. Generally, however, the dog seized the badger by the top of
the neck, and dragged him into daylight, and as nothing would induce him
to let go, one man held the badger by the tail, while another, with a
large pair of tongs, made for the purpose, and put on each side of the
dog’s neck, fairly “choked ” him off. The badger, who seemed quite
phlegmatic under the whole operation, was then put into his den to try
another subject.

It is well that the
Legislature put down all these sports, for there can be no doubt that
they exercised a brutal tendency. We ascribe to the passing of this law
the decay of the celebrated “Blue Pauls”—their occupation was gone.

We cheerfully give
Campsie all the “credit and renown” that can accrue to it for producing
the sire of such a notable race as the “Blue Pauls”—all the more readily
as the said sire appears to have been a dog of careful education and
upbringing; handsome in person; moving in good society; careful of his
property ; contented with his environment; and averse to changes—a good
Conservative dog, in fact Kirkintilloch, on the other hand, has little
or no credit by the mother. If she had even been a native, it would have
been something to speak of, but she seems to been left on the streets a
waif, from nobody knew where, and of parentage nobody knew what—very
likely she had not an atom of property, not even a collar. She “had no
stake in the country”—and, in fine, was a disreputable Radical. Her only
redeeming quality was that she <c would face anything,” but this only
shows that she was a brazen-faced impudent bitch, and all the more a
Radical.

But look what a judicious
coalition will accomplish; in this case the results were astounding;
Kirkintilloch became famous through the mother of the race, while
Campsie was never heard of in connection with them. Such is the irony of
fate; but the reputation of the “Blue Pauls” only blazed up for a short
period, and then died out—pretty like all coalitions before or since.

A celebrated orator in
Parliament was reproached by the then Duke of Grafton—who prided himself
on his ancestral birth—on account of the obscurity of his origin; and in
reply to the duke called him “but the accident of an accident,” and so
it is with dogs as well as men, as we have seen. After all, the Blue
Pauls turned out to be a doubtful triumph for Kirkintilloch; for what
between fighting dogs and fighting weavers, the place got a bad
reputation for a time. So much so, that young men who had to leave the
town, and seek work elsewhere, were rather reluctant to tell where they
came from. A friend of ours tells us that in his youth he got employment
in another town without being asked where he hailed from. A few days
after a fellow-workman—who had been informed of his origin— spoke to him
of it, the conversation being :—“You’re frae Kirkintilloch?” “Oh, yes.”
“That’s where the idle weavers sit in dozens at the cross, and when a
bee flies past they all rise and run after it, crying, ‘A bummer, a
bummer!”

Before dismissing the
“Blue Pauls,” we may here give an anecdote which is somewhat “germain to
the matter.”

During the Crimean War
the late Captain Kenny was drilling a company of recruits on the
esplanade of Stirling Castle. Every man of them was from Kirkintilloch;
they were newly enrolled, without uniforms, or in mufti, as the phrase
is: and, truth to tell, as ragged a lot as ever marched through
Coventry; but the real stuff of which soldiers are made.

Being young fellows,
rollicky and reckless, it required all the commanding presence and voice
of Captain Kenny to keep them in the semblance of order, or attention to
his instructions.

Suddenly the captain
beheld them looking in one direction, laughing and talking—the last
being a bad military offence—and, fairly losing his temper, shouted,

“ATTENTION!!! what the -
are you looking at?” One answered, “It’s Coach Will.” “And who is Coach
Will?” “He’s frae Kirkintilloch.” The captain, glancing at the new
comer, said in vehement tones.

“Surely to goodness this
is the last of the ‘Blue Pauls now.”

We must, however, redeem
the character of weavers, which we hope to do ere we close, and that to
their satisfaction as well as the reader’s, and with interest in a
double sense also. The following series of letters appeared in the
Kirkintilloch Herald\ and are reproduced with the sanction of the
writer, Mr. David Russell, now one of the staff of the Glasgow Herald
newspaper.

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